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Simmons Names New Dean of School of Social Work

Christine Saulnier, University of Wisconsin Administrator, To Head Historic Social Work School

BOSTON (February 24, 2005) — Christine Flynn Saulnier, an academic administrator in the University of Wisconsin System who also has a lengthy social work background, has been named the new dean of the Simmons School of Social Work, Simmons College president Daniel S. Cheever Jr. has announced.

Founded in 1904, the Simmons School of Social Work is the oldest university-affiliated school of social work in the nation. Nationally acclaimed for its clinical-based practice and innovative programming, the school currently enrolls more than 430 masters and doctoral candidates, who are deployed during field work training to more than 300 social work agencies throughout New England.

Saulnier has been the academic planner for the University of Wisconsin System Office of Academic Affairs since 2002, with responsibility for planning new degree programs across the system's multiple campuses, leading statewide research and diversity initiatives, and developing system-wide academic policy.

From 1997 to 2002 she was a faculty member, then an administrator at the Boston University School of Social Work, serving as director of the MSW Program and the Advanced Standing Program.

Saulnier has been a faculty member at the University at Buffalo, SUNY; was a clinical social worker at the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, MA; was head of social services at the Quigley Memorial Hospital/Soldiers' Home in Chelsea, MA; and has served in a variety of other social work capacities in community organizations. She has served on local and national social service, editorial, and professional boards.

Saulnier is the author of a book on feminist theory and numerous articles on feminism, alcohol problems, and group work. She has a B.S. from Michigan State University, an M.S.W. from Boston University, and a Ph.D. in Social Welfare from the University of California at Berkeley.

Simmons College, founded in 1899, is a nationally recognized small, private university in Boston. In addition to the School of Social Work, Simmons has an undergraduate college for women, a graduate business school for women, and graduate programs in health studies, library and information science, and the liberal arts.

For further information, the Simmons College home page is at www.simmons.edu, and the Simmons School of Social Work is at www.simmons.edu/ssw.